On Tuesday, the High Court in Karnataka ordered a narration of the vote of respondents in the elections held by the election district of the Malur Assembly in the district of Kolar 2023, abolishing the election of the candidate of Nanje Gowd because of the district electoral official (DEO) to record in the process of counting.
The Court also ordered the Indian Election Commission (ECI) to take note of the fact that Deo could not provide video recording before court and take the relevant steps against the Deo by law.
Justice R. Devdas approved an order and partially allowed the election petition filed with the defeated candidate KS Manjunath Gowdou BJP.
The Court of Justice ordered Deo and ECI to ensure the recalculation of the votes and to declare the results again within four weeks, and follow all other procedures after the statement of the results in accordance with the law after the votes were released.
However, the court remained for 30 days at the order to tell the votes that Mr. Nanje Gowda appealed against this order before the Supreme Court.
Before opening EVMS
Mr. Manjunath Gowda, who has made several accusations of illegality in the process of counting in his petition, claimed that the returning official (RO) and his team of election officials received the signatures of agents (Mr. Manjunath Gowda) before the start of EVMS.
RO did not accept any order to apply for overcrowding submitted by the petitioner; RO there was a bad table of votes; that signature of counting the petitioner agents has not been obtained in many forms-17C Part II; And unauthorized persons were allowed to enter the center counting, etc., among other things, were charges.
However, the High Court stated that these accusations could be easily verified if DEO created a video processing process because the video of the counting process was compulsory according to ECI standards.
The ECI standards have explained that “Videoography should indicate the date and time and video of the CD should be sealed, which clearly refers to all the details contained after the counting process for the future link” and could not be cut off as mere instructions, the High Court said.
The High Court also pointed out that the ECI instructions also explained that a CD containing a full video of the counting process could be provided free of charge to candidates, it is not far from looking for specific demand and wisdom for such instructions.
Summons of Deo
When the court issued a Deo summons to create a video of the counting process, the clerk did not produce a video, but filed an affidavit with the communication provided by the service provider and the response provided by the service provider that handed over the hard drive containing video recordings and after receiving all the data, the DEO completion certificate was issued.
“ECI is aware of all these developments;, however, all the efforts of this court have been in vain,” he noted that Judge Devdas, in ordering to tell the votes relying on the recent verdict on compliance with the elections after elections to the election official.
Published – 16 September 2025 9:18
